The Collaborative International Dictionary

Note: The banana has a soft, herbaceous stalk, with leaves of
great length and breadth. The flowers grow in bunches,
covered with a sheath of a green or purple color; the
fruit is five or six inches long, and over an inch in
diameter; the pulp is soft, and of a luscious taste,
and is eaten either raw or cooked. This plant is a
native of tropical countries, and furnishes an
important article of food.

Banana bird (Zo["o]l.), a small American bird ( Icterus
leucopteryx), which feeds on the banana.

Banana quit (Zo["o]l.), a small bird of tropical America,
of the genus Certhiola, allied to the creepers.

Related phrases:

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary

banana

1590s, borrowed by Spanish or Portuguese from a West African word, possibly Wolof banana. The plant was introduced to the New World from Africa in 1516. Top banana, second banana, etc. are 1950s, from show business slang use of banana for "comedian, especially in a burlesque show." Banana split first attested 1920. Banana oil "nonsense" is slang from c.1910.

Related phrases:

Wiktionary

banana

acr. '''B'''uild '''A'''bsolutely '''N'''othing '''A'''nywhere '''N'''ear '''A'''nyone (or) '''A'''nything. Someone who objects to the building of any structure in their neighborhood, especially in public policy debate. Used as an expression of irritation towards people who are thought of as being worse than NIMBYs.

Related phrases:

Wikipedia

Banana (disambiguation)

Banana is the common name for flowering plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce.

Banana or bananas may also refer to:

Banana

The banana is an edible fruit, botanically a berry, produced by several kinds of large herbaceousflowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called plantains. The fruit is variable in size, color and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible parthenocarpic (seedless) bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and Musa × paradisiaca for the hybrid Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific name Musa sapientum is no longer used.

Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. They are grown in at least 107 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make fiber, banana wine and banana beer and as ornamental plants.

Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between "bananas" and "plantains". Especially in the Americas and Europe, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of the Cavendish group, which are the main exports from banana-growing countries. By contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called "plantains". In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the simple two-fold distinction is not useful and is not made in local languages.

The term "banana" is also used as the common name for the plants which produce the fruit. This can extend to other members of the genus Musa like the scarlet banana (Musa coccinea), pink banana (Musa velutina) and the Fe'i bananas. It can also refer to members of the genus Ensete, like the snow banana (Ensete glaucum) and the economically important false banana (Ensete ventricosum). Both genera are classified under the banana family, Musaceae.

Banana (video game)

is a fixed screen puzzle video game produced by Victor Musical Industries that was released exclusively for the Family Computer in Japan in .

Banana (band)

Banana ( Serbian Cyrillic: Банана) was a Yugoslav pop rock band from Belgrade.

Banana (film)

Banana is a 2015 comedy-drama film written and directed by Andrea Jublin.

For this film Jublin was nominated for David di Donatello for Best New Director.

Banana (slur)

Banana is a term for an Asian person living in a Western country (e.g., an Asian American) who has lost touch with the cultural identity of his or her parents. The term is derived from the fruit banana, which is "yellow on the outside, white on the inside". It may be used as a pejorative term or as a non-pejorative term.

Banana (TV series)

Banana is a 2015 British television series created by Russell T Davies and aired on E4. The sister series to Channel 4's Cucumber and the 4oD documentary series Tofu, Banana is a series focusing on LGBT youth in Manchester, on the vicinity of the Cucumber narrative. Unlike Cucumber, which is a self-contained serial following the story of one gay man, Banana is an anthology series focusing on the wider LGBT spectrum.

Banana develops some of the storylines of characters featured in Cucumber as well as introducing many new characters. Banana is primarily a self-contained series, occasional overlapping with the Cucumber narrative. Cucumber, Banana, and Tofu are all named after the same scale of erection hardness, with Banana symbolising the middle of the scale from the flaccid Tofu to the fully erect Cucumber.

Banana (video gamer)

Wang Jiao , known by his tag Banana, is a Chinese Dota 2 coach and player who is the coach for LGD Gaming. He was part of the Newbee eSports Club team that won the single largest money prize in video game history, a 5,028,308 payout at The International 4 (TI4) at the KeyArena, in Seattle, Washington. Newbee defeated ViCi Gaming three game to one. e-Sports Earnings estimates that Banana has won a total of 1,192,049.89 individually from tournaments. As of April 14, 2015, after TI4 Wang "Banana" Jiao was the highest ranking player in terms of prize money won across all competitive video games. Banana joined NewBee in March 2014.

Banana (name)

Banana is a name or alias of the following notable people

Given name

Banana (video gamer), alias of the Chinese professional Dota player Wang Jiao

Banana Joe, alias of the American radio personality Joe Montione (born 1954)

Banana Yaya (born 1991), Cameroonian footballer

Banana Yoshimoto, pen name of the Japanese writer Mahoko Yoshimoto (born 1964)

Surname

Anna Banana, alias of the Canadian artist Anne Lee Long (born 1940)

Canaan Banana (1936–2003), Methodist minister and first president of Zimbabwe

Janet Banana (born Janet Mbuyazwe in 1938), wife of Canaan Banana

Milton Banana, stage name of the Brazilian jazz drummer Antônio de Souza (1935–1998)

Usage examples of "banana".

Yes, we have no bananas When a department store was advertising its food department, the owners wanted to attract an upscale, gourmet-oriented clientele.

This human cargo represents a weight of about twenty tons, which is equivalent to that of thirty persons, two boars, three sows, twelve piglets, thirty fowls, ten dogs, twenty rats, a hundred balled or potted breadfruit and banana plants, and twelve tons of watergourds, seeds, yams, tubers, coconuts, adzes and weapons.

He wanted to destroy them all, so that he would feel less lonely, and, in order to penetrate this absence with his annihilating presence, he left the jeep behind at a forgotten township where a green track ended and an ancient whisky priest sat all day in the ruins of a forsaken church brewing fire-water from wild bananas and keening the stations of the cross.

Mayonnaise dressing is used for meat, fish, some varieties of fruit, as banana, apple and pineapple, and for some vegetables, as cauliflower, asparagus and tomatoes.

But today was market day down in Aspic Hole, and the pungent slick of dung-smell and rot that rolled over New Crobuzon was, in these streets, for these hours, improved with paprika and fresh tomato, hot oil and fish and cinnamon, cured meat, banana and onion.

Even across five hundred yards, Batman could recognize the Soviet bloc weapon with its curved, thirty-round banana magazine.

Two wings extended out toward the street, creating a garden-like area in the center that was planted with pink and gray caladium, banks of philodendrons and elephant ears, climbing roses, banana trees, bamboo, crepe myrtle and azaleas, whose blooms puffed in the wind and tumbled on the grass.

Chubby fed us on banana cake and coffee while Chubby and I worked out a business deal.

Dickie Bonnano, also known as Dickwad, Banana Dick, Dickhead, and sometimes just plain Asshole, was driving the 69.

It is a remarkable fact that the epidemics of yellow fever in New Orleans have declined in virulence almost incredibly since the Banana began to be eaten there in considerable quantities.

Soon he stopped reading, placed one book on top of the other, and began to rock very slowly in the wicker rocking chair, contemplating with regret the banana plants in the mire of the patio, the stripped mango, the flying ants that came after the rain, the ephemeral splendor of another afternoon that would never return.

I was getting used to, Italian focaccia bread and pate and a mad-sounding French cheese called Terroir, peaches and bananas and Greek yoghurt.

Here they built themselves handsome freestone houses, with noble verandahs and balconies and Moorish-looking high-walled gardens, within which grew the banana and the orange, the loquat and the guava, in tropical luxuriance and profusion.

They live in communities consisting of about a dozen individuals, and are strictly monogamous in their conjugal relations, and vegetarian, or rather frugivorous, in their diet, their favourite food being bananas.

No bananas yet, so I called Glory Geis, who chortled happy welcome, and I fenderfought my way to the lake-shore fireside, where once again in the blue jump suit the graceful ragamuffin lady in her second widowhood plied me with a potion which sharpened the taste buds for what the kitchen would provide.